“Bubble” (2005/06)

“Bubble” (a film about three people working in a doll factory and their relationship) is the first in a series of six digital video features directed by Steven Soderbergh, which will all be filmed in small towns with local nonprofessional actors who will be working off a script which has been roughly outlined and then filled in by the actors’ real life personality and backgrounds.

<p style="font-family: verdana;" class="MsoNormal">Sounds quite a bit like Italian Realism. And here again: it works. </p>    <p style="font-family: verdana;" class="MsoNormal">I thoroughly enjoyed the realism of the characters, people you don’t expect to see in films but at the grocery store. Truly great performances. More real than Reality TV, you get the feeling that “the people” have finally made it onto the screen. </p>    <p style="font-family: verdana;" class="MsoNormal">The static wide shots that seem to objectively observe from a distance enhanced the feeling of realism (which, in my opinion, worked a lot better than the close and constantly jumping around camera of “A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints”).</p>    <p style="font-family: verdana;" class="MsoNormal">Fortunately this film is not just an exercise in watching real people doing real mundane everyday things. There is conflict, there is change, there is pondering. </p>    <p style="font-family: verdana;" class="MsoNormal">A quiet film about real life? Not everybody’s thing. But I love it! </p>    <p style="font-family: verdana;" class="MsoNormal">And I’m not just saying that because I hope it will spawn a trend which will awaken interest in a feature film I directed years ago with non-actors in a small town improvising based on… or am I? :-)</p><p style="font-family: verdana;" class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0454792/">On IMDb</a><br /><a href="http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10005849-bubble/">On Rotten Tomatoes</a><br /><a href="http://www.netflix.com/MovieDisplay?movieid=70038788&amp;trkid=189530">On Netflix</a><br /><a href="http://www.bubblethefilm.com/">Official Site</a><br /></p>